Digital Literacy Project

Seeing Red: Young People’s Stories for the Eyes, From the Heart

On Saturday, February 27, 2016 from 5:00 pm to 1:00 am at the Atwater Library (1200 Atwater Ave)

Except for school hallways, kids don’t usually have the chance to share their thoughts and experiences, expressed creatively. In Seeing Red, twenty-one Montrealers aged 6-11 create stories and transform them into digital art that comes from their hearts.

Working with three Montreal authors (Raquel Rivera, Marie-Louise Gay, and Greg Santos) and with new media facilitators ( Nicola Sibthorpe, Nina Pariser, Viola-Rose Day and Eric Craven) youth at the Atwater Library and at the Pointe St-Charles YMCA created these works of poem and story-based video and animation.

Part of the Atwater Writers Exhibition (AWE), a multiformat celebration of English-Quebec writing, with support from the Community Cultural Action Fund, Department of Canadian Heritage.

On Saturday, February 27, 2016 from 5:00 pm to 1:00 am we are welcoming the public for an exciting community-based new media installation.

Immerse yourself in a sound and video installation that begins with images projected through the front windows of our heritage building. Inside, our reading room will be transformed by a multi-media exhibition created by seniors who digitized and re-edited home movies from the 40s to the 70s, and made their own music and sound using digital tools. An extension of our Digital Literacy Project with support from New Horizons for Seniors and Ageing + Communication + Technologies (ACT).

Armed with reels of old home movies, a small group of people met with Eric Craven, the Digital Literacy Project Coordinator of the Atwater Library, in October 2015. This original footage was, in some cases, filmed by the participants themselves, as children. Other reels were home movies shot by their parents. The film dates range from the 1940’s to the 1970’s.

After the films were digitized into a modern format by Karl Lemieux, a Montréal filmmaker, Eric taught each participant how to use editing software. Over the ensuing winter months, the group came to the Library in their spare time to work on their projects. He encouraged them to explore the available features and craft new versions of their movies. This evolved into the creation of a collaborative film.

Since the summer, a group of seniors have been meeting every Friday to make music digitally. The music you hear tonight is the result of their exploration and creation centred on listening in new ways and hearing differently. Some of the work is more traditional, with familiar melodies and rhythms. Others are less traditional and explore a different range of melodies and rhythms of everyday life. Birdsong, crowd speech, construction sounds and more.

Juxtaposed against the videos of the Moving Pictures project, these sounds form an unlikely soundtrack to a world of memories captured in light and time.

A string of events, seemingly unrelated, yet charmingly harmonious, have come together in this ambitious and tender project. Some have narrated their scenes – sharing memories and thoughts with the viewer.